Technology relating to charged particle beam devices, especially, focused ion beam (FIB) device, is disclosed in Patent Literature 1. The FIB device utilizes the sputtering phenomenon occurring when irradiating a focused ion beam to a sample, and is able to perform microfabrication of the sample. Recently, the technology relating to combinations of FIB device and SEM or STEM device is disclosed in Patent Literature 2. Such FIB-SEM device and FIB-STEM device are arranged so that an FIB irradiation axis and an electron beam irradiation axis are disposed at acute angles, at an intersection of which a sample is placed. Accordingly, they are characterized by having an ability to achieve direct SEM observation of an FIB-processed cross-section.
According to Patent Literature 3, JP-A-05-052721, a micro-sampling method is disclosed therein, which extracts a desired region from a sample within FIB processing/fabrication apparatus and is able to manufacture a thin-film sample for use in transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation or scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) observation. This technique includes process steps consisting essentially of conductive film formation, peripheral machining/processing, bottom cutting, mechanical probe fastening, support section cutting, micro-sample extraction, fastening it to sample table, mechanical probe cutting, and thin-film fabrication. Traditionally, all of these processes have been manually operated by a user(s).